Main menu

Tag Archives: CSS Shapes

I recently read a white paper written by a fellow designer and friend Mitchell McRee. In the paper, McRee explains how new trends are evolving in design for websites and mobile platforms. After reading the paper I wanted to share my takeaways, and the new capabilities we have for web design.

As we progress further into The Digital Age companies are relying more and more on the Internet as a means of connecting with customers. With increased focus on and demand for well-designed and smoothly functioning sites, it’s important to keep up to date with the evolution of our design technology and capabilities. CSS3 now offers CSS shapes to aid in text display on Internet sites and mobile platforms, giving designers more ways to actively engage with their audience.

Traditionally, when designing an HTML page with CSS, the layout is a series of boxes arranged in a specific way. Being limited to designing within boxes has largely limited the capabilities of designers in the way their displays could be altered. Any curved lines for the site had to be uploaded as an image.

CSS shapes allow designers to create any curved element, and have the capability of manipulating the shape, color, size, position and any other variable. Instead of having to display all text in a box, text can now be aligned with images or created shapes to give it movement and form.

The ability to align text with curved lines and images can be used to create more interest in a body of text, or to form a stronger relationship with the corresponding image. Most businesses want content driven sites to sell, inform, or entertain their customers in the most pleasing and efficient way. CSS shapes allow designers to both draw interest with unique curves and shapes, and also create orderly and space efficient shapes to communicate information clearly.